Gaming summary!
This wasn't the kind of week you come away from bouncing because OMFGICAN'TBELIVETHATJUSTHAPPENED, but by and large, this painful fatigue has been the reason I haven't journaled Sunday's gaming session until now. But here it is, in all it's wonderful glory!
The scene opens with the party on a boat, crossing a small lake to visit Sydney (our former partymate), the Goddess of Love, Shar (We've been systematically killing off her bretheren - three down to date!) and all the lovely Fair Folk who've taken up inhabitance on the island and made it a Freehold. (Freehold = Wyld = Danger!). Having no particular plan of any kind, other than showing up and killing Shar of course, we arrive on land and Mitchell takes charge of the situation, telling a guar that we are here to see Shar. A few rolls later (including a mystery roll, which is rarely good news), we are taken in to see her. Eric pickpockets a few shiny souvenirs along the way. We mock the puny extras who are literally incapable of detecting his theivery.
We arrive to find Shar attended to by several of her accolytes, including the Fair Folk and Sydney. A brief conversation which I cannot recall ensues, at which point we are dismissed until dinner time. We re-group briefly at that and decide (for once) that caution is the better part of valour and that we will simply stay for supper and make our leave. We discover that Eric knows virtually nothing about the Fair Folk and despite our attempts to trace out the basics (or perhaps because of it), he opens the window and swims back to the mainland in terror, leaving his so recently acquired trinkets behind him.
Sydney comes to collect us for supper and we discover Eric's abrupt departure. Hoping to find out a little bit about what Sydney has learned in his time with the Fair Folk, I suggest like any good fighter that we spar after dinner. He agrees. Supper itself is a terse affair, a strange combination of light dinner talk and Fair Folk vs Creation philosophy. David is a little worried they will try to poison us, but we all come out of the meal alive and well.
As my former packmate and I settle in to have our fight, Mitchell takes advantage of the fact that the focus is turned toward us to slip off and have a private chat with Shar. He manages to convince the Goddess to meet us at one of her Temples at a time of our choosing - though he must agree to do his utmost to defend her safety. Out of character, David and I quickly formulate a plan to kill her that takes this into account and we cackle madly. (Not really, but I felt like it.)
We played out the first six rounds of the sparring match with Sydney and Emerald (myself), each round ending in yet another stalemate. Though Emerald is almost trapped when Sydney manages to trap her in his webbing (horray for Spider Beastman forms!), she takes advantage of her own shape-shifting powers to turn into a wolverine and then in the blink of an eye, back into her seven-foot tall Beastman form, effectively solving that problem. Sydney makes excellent use of his extra limbs, nearly ensaring her several time and avoiding knockdown through them. After all of this and only one level of bashing damage between us, GM Misha takes control and a few die rolls and dumb luck later, Emerald is declared the winner after another fourteen rounds of combat. She walks away with no real understanding of how his new powers may have developed, though the party occultist, watching quietly from the sidelines, may have garnered more.
We return to mainland shortly afterwards, filling each other in on what we've discovered. As we were doing this there was a soldier standing nearby, trying to listen in suspiciously, so I set to frightening him away. Alas, I'd simply failed my Perception+Awarness check and I'd actually scared off Eric-in-disguise.
David and I sit down to talk with the local Guild representative, offering her quite the incentives to get the Guild to make better use of our island and to up our own income in the process. David, being an excellent beaurocrat, is very persuasive. Slightly overwhelmed, I spend the meeting standing there looking pretty, but doing it so well I give David three extra dice on his roll. She leaves us, looking extremely thoughtful. She had also dropped hints of several items not on the official record books - the first is that our predecessors were selling the local populace to the Guild as slaves. The second is that Stormcrow, a local spirit (delcared non-existant some decades earlier by the Immaculate Monks), would interfere with such attempts to build up trade.
As a result, I take the Chancellor aside and try to wheedle some information out of him, who says he knows nothing and was kept almost entirely in the dark by his former Dragonblooded rulers. Confident that he is being honest but still left with mysteries, I take my leave. We do discover, however, that the locals harbour ill-will toward the former governers of the island and we decide to takes steps to ensure we are better liked. (Though Eric, who is taking delight in torture, is not making things easy for anyone, including our superiors.) It is determined that David and I will assume a good cop/bad cop schtick when dealing with the officials under us.
With that, we are off the ball on one of the larger islands, held in honour of our arrival. As Misha put it, we were the "Guests of Honour" or "Fresh Meat". Either is applicable. We all connect with the members of our own Houses, all scenes held in private so I have no clue what's going on with anyone else. We all socialise and make small talk, Mitchell finding the most attractive woman in the room and inviting her to dance, each challenging the other over leading rights! He also asks my character to dance, continuing his subtle seduction. Poor Prola is going to be played like a flute by her fellow party members.
The scene opens with the party on a boat, crossing a small lake to visit Sydney (our former partymate), the Goddess of Love, Shar (We've been systematically killing off her bretheren - three down to date!) and all the lovely Fair Folk who've taken up inhabitance on the island and made it a Freehold. (Freehold = Wyld = Danger!). Having no particular plan of any kind, other than showing up and killing Shar of course, we arrive on land and Mitchell takes charge of the situation, telling a guar that we are here to see Shar. A few rolls later (including a mystery roll, which is rarely good news), we are taken in to see her. Eric pickpockets a few shiny souvenirs along the way. We mock the puny extras who are literally incapable of detecting his theivery.
We arrive to find Shar attended to by several of her accolytes, including the Fair Folk and Sydney. A brief conversation which I cannot recall ensues, at which point we are dismissed until dinner time. We re-group briefly at that and decide (for once) that caution is the better part of valour and that we will simply stay for supper and make our leave. We discover that Eric knows virtually nothing about the Fair Folk and despite our attempts to trace out the basics (or perhaps because of it), he opens the window and swims back to the mainland in terror, leaving his so recently acquired trinkets behind him.
Sydney comes to collect us for supper and we discover Eric's abrupt departure. Hoping to find out a little bit about what Sydney has learned in his time with the Fair Folk, I suggest like any good fighter that we spar after dinner. He agrees. Supper itself is a terse affair, a strange combination of light dinner talk and Fair Folk vs Creation philosophy. David is a little worried they will try to poison us, but we all come out of the meal alive and well.
As my former packmate and I settle in to have our fight, Mitchell takes advantage of the fact that the focus is turned toward us to slip off and have a private chat with Shar. He manages to convince the Goddess to meet us at one of her Temples at a time of our choosing - though he must agree to do his utmost to defend her safety. Out of character, David and I quickly formulate a plan to kill her that takes this into account and we cackle madly. (Not really, but I felt like it.)
We played out the first six rounds of the sparring match with Sydney and Emerald (myself), each round ending in yet another stalemate. Though Emerald is almost trapped when Sydney manages to trap her in his webbing (horray for Spider Beastman forms!), she takes advantage of her own shape-shifting powers to turn into a wolverine and then in the blink of an eye, back into her seven-foot tall Beastman form, effectively solving that problem. Sydney makes excellent use of his extra limbs, nearly ensaring her several time and avoiding knockdown through them. After all of this and only one level of bashing damage between us, GM Misha takes control and a few die rolls and dumb luck later, Emerald is declared the winner after another fourteen rounds of combat. She walks away with no real understanding of how his new powers may have developed, though the party occultist, watching quietly from the sidelines, may have garnered more.
We return to mainland shortly afterwards, filling each other in on what we've discovered. As we were doing this there was a soldier standing nearby, trying to listen in suspiciously, so I set to frightening him away. Alas, I'd simply failed my Perception+Awarness check and I'd actually scared off Eric-in-disguise.
David and I sit down to talk with the local Guild representative, offering her quite the incentives to get the Guild to make better use of our island and to up our own income in the process. David, being an excellent beaurocrat, is very persuasive. Slightly overwhelmed, I spend the meeting standing there looking pretty, but doing it so well I give David three extra dice on his roll. She leaves us, looking extremely thoughtful. She had also dropped hints of several items not on the official record books - the first is that our predecessors were selling the local populace to the Guild as slaves. The second is that Stormcrow, a local spirit (delcared non-existant some decades earlier by the Immaculate Monks), would interfere with such attempts to build up trade.
As a result, I take the Chancellor aside and try to wheedle some information out of him, who says he knows nothing and was kept almost entirely in the dark by his former Dragonblooded rulers. Confident that he is being honest but still left with mysteries, I take my leave. We do discover, however, that the locals harbour ill-will toward the former governers of the island and we decide to takes steps to ensure we are better liked. (Though Eric, who is taking delight in torture, is not making things easy for anyone, including our superiors.) It is determined that David and I will assume a good cop/bad cop schtick when dealing with the officials under us.
With that, we are off the ball on one of the larger islands, held in honour of our arrival. As Misha put it, we were the "Guests of Honour" or "Fresh Meat". Either is applicable. We all connect with the members of our own Houses, all scenes held in private so I have no clue what's going on with anyone else. We all socialise and make small talk, Mitchell finding the most attractive woman in the room and inviting her to dance, each challenging the other over leading rights! He also asks my character to dance, continuing his subtle seduction. Poor Prola is going to be played like a flute by her fellow party members.